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iPhone 5s Battery Drain on 3G

jcphoenix

jcphoenix

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 6, 2009
89
24
Ottawa
Hey guys, the previous iPhone I had before this was an iPhone 4 and I loved it. The battery life was great and is still pretty decent.

I hate to add to these battery drain threads, but I think I've got a problem with my iPhone 5s.

I turned off all location services (including the ones in System Services), background app refreshes, parallax views and dynamic wallpapers, scaled back Push notifications, basically turned off every single thing I could find mentioned online that could leak battery but it doesn't seem to make a difference.

When I'm on WiFi, the battery seems somewhat okay. But the 3G seems to be a problem. I tried testing it by using only iMessage (no internet surfing, no switching from the Messages panel) on 3G with 20% brightness and the battery levels drop consistently at about 1% every two minutes with full bars. It drops even faster with less bars.

That doesn't seem right - that would give me 200 minutes (or 3 hours and 20 minutes) on 3G just doing texting on a full charge, which is less than half of the advertised 8 hours of internet browsing on 3G. Keep in mind too that I had almost all the settings turned off plus my brightness was just barely above the lowest.

Anyone else having this problem or have any idea how to solve it?

I had restored my phone from my iPhone 4 back-up, so I went back and wiped my iPhone 5s completely and tested it with none of my apps added - and it still did the same thing.
 
Last edited:
my 5 does the same exact thing. ive restored as new twice with no help. im convinced theres some kind of bug in ios 7. my battery life has been cut short by almost 3 hours now with 7 as opposed to what i used to get on ios 6.
 
I'm in the exact same boat as the OP. I have done all those things on my brand new iPhone 5s 32gb and it's loosing about 1% of battery every 7 mins...I expected a lot more.

I will give it a couple more days, but I will be heading to Apple for an explanation if this doesn't improve.
 
jcphoenix said:
Hey guys, the previous iPhone I had before this was an iPhone 4 and I loved it. The battery life was great and is still pretty decent.

I hate to add to these battery drain threads, but I think I've got a problem with my iPhone 5s.

I turned off all location services (including the ones in System Services), background app refreshes, parallax views and dynamic wallpapers, scaled back Push notifications, basically turned off every single thing I could find mentioned online that could leak battery but it doesn't seem to make a difference.

When I'm on WiFi, the battery seems somewhat okay. But the 3G seems to be a problem. I tried testing it by using only iMessage (no internet surfing, no switching from the Messages panel) on 3G with 20% brightness and the battery levels drop consistently at about 1% every two minutes with full bars. It drops even faster with less bars.

That doesn't seem right - that would give me 200 minutes (or 3 hours and 20 minutes) on 3G just doing texting on a full charge, which is less than half of the advertised 8 hours of internet browsing on 3G. Keep in mind too that I had almost all the settings turned off plus my brightness was just barely above the lowest.

Anyone else having this problem or have any idea how to solve it?

I had restored my phone from my iPhone 4 back-up, so I went back and wiped my iPhone 5s completely and tested it with none of my apps added - and it still did the same thing.
Click to expand...

I actually had my iPhone 5 replaced today which had the same issue but it was replaced because it was getting noticeably worse service and there was a lot of dust in the camera lens which was throwing off pictures and also the phone was dropping service but anyway, my battery drain is gone, plus especially on "4G" not LTE, its not draining even close to as bad as before even with only 1-3 dots of service
 
I've gone 4 times to apple about battery, after iOS7 it has gone down even more, they keep asking/ telling me reinstall as new and "by our reading the battery looks heathy" and saying that getting refurb./ another phone won't change anything.
I have never experienced this dell like service from apple. My warranty ends end of Oct.
Not sure what to do!
 
Ugh this is frustrating to hear but at least glad to know some other people are experiencing some similar issues. Not sure if I should go into Apple yet about my problem, I'm still hoping it's an iOS7 issue that can be fixed shortly with a software update more than anything else though Delorean's experience does not bode well.

Also, I did do a clean wipe and reinstall of iOS7 and I'm still experiencing the issues.
 
I've been having the same problem here. When 3G is enabled the battery level decreases by about 1% every two minutes or so (full wipe, brightness set to 20%, and battery consuming features turned off as mentioned in the first post).
When I'm not using the phone though, the battery level doesn't change...
I went to the Apple Store and was told my battery was in a perfect condition and that everything was normal...
So I'm not really sure what to do either...?
Did any of you guys who experienced that issue get a new iPhone 5s and notice any difference?
 
iPhone 5s Battery Drain on 3G

rugyzysa.jpg

My battery life is getting worse. I'm so upset about this. I have a 64 gig gold iPhone 5S....
I didn't play any games at all just browse the net. When I wrote this post my battery drained 2%. Shall I get my phone replaced?
I always close my apps in the background.
 
It's just the 3G chips. They eat power. If your signal is anything less than 4 bars then things are really bad.

It's just the way things are.

Don't forget. Apples tests to get the battery life stats they boast aren't real world. They use test has stations with a signal strength so high it's never realistic. They test on a new device. With nothing running apart from a configured email account.

Something which may help. Do you have Facebook installed? Is chat enabled?
 
Mercenary said:
It's just the 3G chips. They eat power. If your signal is anything less than 4 bars then things are really bad.

It's just the way things are.

Don't forget. Apples tests to get the battery life stats they boast aren't real world. They use test has stations with a signal strength so high it's never realistic. They test on a new device. With nothing running apart from a configured email account.

Something which may help. Do you have Facebook installed? Is chat enabled?
Click to expand...

Yes I do have Facebook installed. Chat is enabled. But I close my apps all the time.
I'll do a test and delete all my apps set up as a new iPhone and see how long it will last.
 
If you're not in an LTE coverage area, turn LTE off in settings and you'll find that your battery will last longer. The phone wastes a lot of power searching for an LTE signal when it's on 3G.

Once your area is covered with LTE, you can turn it back on. As long as it sees a good LTE or WiFi signal, having LTE on won't use up so much power.
 
ledbye said:
I'm in the exact same boat as the OP. I have done all those things on my brand new iPhone 5s 32gb and it's loosing about 1% of battery every 7 mins...I expected a lot more.

I will give it a couple more days, but I will be heading to Apple for an explanation if this doesn't improve.
Click to expand...

If u are loosing 1% every 7 minutes of usage then that is excellent and is as good as it gets.
 
My iPhone 5s 16GB also drains 1% in couple of minutes on standby and in applestore they told me that the device itself is okay but there is an application that drains battery big time but i have everything off and closed and i still dont know what it is...
 
Mine is bit different, its very erratic. I understand that every day is not the same but..

I get full day around with my normal usage on Monday,
I get phone dead by close of office on tuesday, i charge it car, at home in evening..disconnect thru the night and amazingly, it runs thru the whole of wednesday...

then again it drops to half day and so on..

All 5 days, i have nearly the same routine and absolutely same places to visit.
Home and office !!!

Any clues what could be the issue .. this is iPhone 5 btw..about 14 months old
 
Sekelani said:
Image
My battery life is getting worse. I'm so upset about this. I have a 64 gig gold iPhone 5S....
I didn't play any games at all just browse the net. When I wrote this post my battery drained 2%. Shall I get my phone replaced?
I always close my apps in the background.
Click to expand...

you've been using your phone almost continuously for 3 hours and you've got half your battery left. That's fine.

also, you're not helping anything by closing apps in the background.

----------
ledbye said:
I'm in the exact same boat as the OP. I have done all those things on my brand new iPhone 5s 32gb and it's loosing about 1% of battery every 7 mins...I expected a lot more.

I will give it a couple more days, but I will be heading to Apple for an explanation if this doesn't improve.
Click to expand...

1% battery loss every 7 minutes translates to 11.6 hours of usage. Congratulations on your great battery life.
 
The problem is probably LTE. The phone is trying to get an LTE connection which is why it drains much faster. If I am in a 3G area where LTE isn't possible to get I just turn LTE off and it drains about 1% every hour or two. I have the same problem when I leave LTE on when I'm in a bad reception spot.
 
Bacong said:
you've been using your phone almost continuously for 3 hours and you've got half your battery left. That's fine.

also, you're not helping anything by closing apps in the background.
How certain are you that closing background apps don't help battery life? I assumed it would help and I've herd countless threads that it does.
Click to expand...
 
Sekelani said:
Bacong said:
you've been using your phone almost continuously for 3 hours and you've got half your battery left. That's fine.

also, you're not helping anything by closing apps in the background.
How certain are you that closing background apps don't help battery life? I assumed it would help and I've herd countless threads that it does.
Click to expand...


because that's not how iOS multitasking is designed. you're using more battery life by forcing the phone to launch the app fresh every time. Apps don't run in the background like android. Just let the phone do its thing.. not using multitasking is like being back in 2006.
Click to expand...
 
iPhone 5s Battery Drain on 3G

Bacong said:
Sekelani said:
because that's not how iOS multitasking is designed. you're using more battery life by forcing the phone to launch the app fresh every time. Apps don't run in the background like android. Just let the phone do its thing.. not using multitasking is like being back in 2006.
Click to expand...


If that's the case, why are we given the option to quit apps?
Click to expand...
 
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